DPIC Podcasts

Discussions With DPIC

Published: Oct 03, 2019

James Rytting, an attor­ney who rep­re­sent­ed Texas pris­on­er Larry Swearingen, describes the junk sci­ence used to con­vict his client. Swearingen was exe­cut­ed on August 21, 2019, after mul­ti­ple courts declined to con­sid­er new evi­dence that revealed flaws in the foren­sic evi­dence pre­sent­ed at tri­al. Rytting also explains how Swearingen’s case high­lights flaws that con­tribute to wrong­ful con­vic­tions through­out the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem: unsci­en­tif­ic analy­sis of foren­sic evi­dence, lack of sci­en­tif­ic train­ing for lawyers and judges, and an appel­late sys­tem that val­ues final­i­ty over fairness.

Discussions With DPIC

Published: Aug 27, 2019

Writer/​director Chinonye Chukwu speaks with DPIC Senior Director of Research and Special Projects Ngozi Ndulue about her award-win­ning new film, Clemency. Chukwu dis­cuss­es her inspi­ra­tion for the sto­ry, the years-long process of research and immer­sion that helped her shape the nar­ra­tive, and her hopes for how this film will be received.

Discussions With DPIC

Published: Jul 03, 2019

In the lat­est episode of Discussions with DPIC, New Hampshire State Representative Renny Cushing talks with DPIC Executive Director Robert Dunham about the life-alter­ing expe­ri­ence of hav­ing a close fam­i­ly mem­ber mur­dered and his jour­ney from being a mur­der-fam­i­ly sur­vivor to spear­head­ing New Hampshire’s recent repeal of the death penal­ty. Cushing — whose father and broth­er-in-law were killed in sep­a­rate inci­dents — dis­cuss­es his ongo­ing efforts to empow­er crime sur­vivors and his role work­ing to bring togeth­er a broad coali­tion of peo­ple from across the polit­i­cal spec­trum and with a vari­ety of life experiences…

Discussions With DPIC

Published: May 17, 2019

Emmy- and Oscar-win­ner Edward Zwick speaks about his lat­est film, Trial By Fire, in the lat­est episode of Discussions with DPIC. Zwick pro­duced and direct­ed Trial By Fire, which tells the sto­ry of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was con­vict­ed and sen­tence to death in 1992 for the alleged arson homi­cide of his three chil­dren. Arson inves­ti­ga­tors who tes­ti­fied against him used flawed meth­ods, and a jail­house infor­mant received undis­closed incen­tives from pros­e­cu­tors in exchange for his tes­ti­mo­ny that Willingham had con­fessed to him, but Willingham was exe­cut­ed in 2004. Willingham’s…

Discussions With DPIC

Published: Mar 14, 2019

In the lat­est episode of Discussions with DPIC, Dr. Katherine Beckett (pic­tured, left) and Dr. Heather Evans (pic­tured, right), authors of ​“The Role of Race in Washington State Capital Sentencing: 1981 – 2014,” dis­cuss their research and its impact on the Washington Supreme Court’s deci­sion to strike down the state’s death penal­ty. Their study was heav­i­ly cit­ed by the court in State v. Gregory, the October 2018 deci­sion that found Washington’s death penal­ty vio­lat­ed the state con­sti­tu­tion because it was ​“imposed in an arbi­trary and racial­ly biased man­ner.” The researchers described the…

Discussions With DPIC

Published: Feb 08, 2019

Robin Konrad, for­mer DPIC Director of Research and Special Projects, joins Executive Director Robert Dunham and cur­rent Director of Research and Special Projects Ngozi Ndulue to dis­cuss DPIC’s November 2018 report, Behind the Curtain: Secrecy and the Death Penalty in the United States. Konrad, the lead author of the report, gives an overview of the recent expan­sion of secre­cy in the use of the death penal­ty. She explains the ubiq­ui­ty of secre­cy poli­cies, say­ing ​“every­body has some type of secre­cy pro­vi­sion” relat­ed to the sources of exe­cu­tion drugs or the…

Discussions With DPIC

Published: Dec 21, 2018

Members of the DPIC staff dis­cuss key themes from the 2018 Year End Report in the lat­est episode of Discussions with DPIC. Robert Dunham, Ngozi Ndulue, and Anne Holsinger delve into the major death-penal­ty trends and news items of the year, includ­ing the ​“extend­ed trend” of gen­er­a­tional lows in death sen­tenc­ing and exe­cu­tions, elec­tion results that indi­cate the decline will like­ly con­tin­ue, and the pos­si­ble impact of Pope Francis’s change to Catholic teach­ing on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. They explore the rea­sons for reduced death-penal­ty usage, high­light­ing the sto­ries of peo­ple who…

Discussions With DPIC

Published: Dec 01, 2018

Cardinal Blase Cupich, the ninth Bishop of the Archdiocese of Chicago, speaks with DPIC Executive Director Robert Dunham about the impli­ca­tions of the new Catholic Catechism pro­mul­gat­ed by Pope Francis, which deemed the death penal­ty ​“inad­mis­si­ble” in all cas­es and com­mit­ted the Church to work­ing to abol­ish cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the United States and world­wide. Saying ​“human dig­ni­ty is at cen­ter of all we say and do,” Cardinal Cupich explains how the Church’s com­mit­ment to action on the death penal­ty fits into its broad­er teach­ings about social jus­tice and the…

Discussions With DPIC

Published: Oct 25, 2018

Bharat Malkani, senior lec­tur­er in the School of Law and Politics at Cardiff University in the United Kingdom and author of the 2018 book Slavery and the Death Penalty: A Study in Abolition, speaks with DPIC’s exec­u­tive direc­tor Robert Dunham and Ngozi Ndulue, DPIC’s Director of Research and Special Projects, about the his­tor­i­cal links between slav­ery, lynch­ing, Jim Crow and the death penal­ty and the lessons mod­ern oppo­nents of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment can learn from the strate­gies employed by slav­ery abo­li­tion­ists. Malkani explores the par­al­lels between the insti­tu­tion­al approach­es of conservative…

Discussions With DPIC

Published: Sep 07, 2018

Keelah Williams, assis­tant pro­fes­sor of psy­chol­o­gy at Hamilton College in New York, speaks with DPIC exec­u­tive direc­tor Robert Dunham about her research on the death penal­ty and resource scarci­ty — a con­cept from evo­lu­tion­ary psy­chol­o­gy that stud­ies how peo­ple react to social con­di­tions in an envi­ron­ment with lim­it­ed resources.